


Making Candlenights

by Stealthtable



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Candlenights, Gen, It’s really just teen for a swear or two, Team Bonding, Team as Family, reminscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 04:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12999531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stealthtable/pseuds/Stealthtable
Summary: The team reminisces about their various Candlenights traditions.





	Making Candlenights

The crew is all together one evening after dinner, after another day of research and training and building. Davenport’s still finishing up his dessert, he always insists on waiting until his crew is served before he eats. Barry’s stacking plates, shuffling back and forth from table to kitchen while Lup wraps up leftovers. Nearby, Taako lounges on a sofa in the common area, having set up a solid, I cook, you clean rule on day one of their journey. Magnus has been organising his equipment after his training session with the Power Bear, and Merle’s still at the table after cleaning his plate, appreciating the meal he’s eaten.

Lucretia sighs and flips back to the beginning of her journal. She meticulously counts the entries, page by page, date by date, tallying up the days since the beginning of the mission. She was right. No wonder she’s been a little down lately.

Merle catches the look on Lucretia’s face and turns his attention toward her. “Hey, why the long face?” he asks. Lucretia looks up from her journal and tries for a smile.

“It’s nothing, Merle, I’m alright,” Lucretia replies. “I just realized it’s almost Candlenights.”

Magnus’s head snaps up from the gym bag he’s digging through, eyes wide. “Really?”

Lucretia nods. “I counted twice. It always comes about now. I never thought we’d...still be out here,” she says.

Of course not. This was meant to be a two month mission, but it’s been much longer than that. The plane they’ve found with the animal civilization is beautiful, but it’s not home, and none of the crew has thought they’d be spending Candlenights in an entirely different reality from home.

Lucretia sighs again. “By now I’d have made cards for all my neighbours usually,” she muses. “My family always collected them and stuck them up on a wall in a pattern. You could always tell who they were from by the sort of personality of them. We used to make each other guess based on the front who sent them.”

Barry stops stacking the plates from dinner and sets them down. “Yeah,” he mumbles, “my mom and I always drank a special toast for happiness in the coming year. I can’t believe it’s almost Candlenights.” He shakes his head. “We’ve been out here longer than I thought.”

Magnus, still with one hand in the gym bag, ponders. “My favourite was always going with my folks to get the Candlenights bush,” he says. “I’ll never forget the first year I was strong enough to carry it home. Before that my dad would carry it and I would hold onto a branch like I was helping, and he always said he couldn’t do it without me.” He pulls his hand out of the bag and straightens up. “What’d you do for Candlenights, Merle?”

Merle shrugs as Lup squeezes behind him to flop into the sofa opposite Taako. “Well you know, dwarves have a hell of lot of relatives, so gift giving was kinda chaotic until one year. We started organising a secret Star King exchange, and it was real fun ‘cause sometimes you’d get a relative that was a little distant and have to kinda stalk ‘em a little to figure out what they’d like best, that kinda thing. That was probably my favourite part, was trying to find the best gift idea for ‘em.” He chuckles. “I never did get it quite right.”

Davenport nods. “We did secret Star King too, after we sang Candlenights carols. We actually practiced harmonies and everything, I still remember my parts.” He looks thoughtful as the crew mulls over their various traditions.

“Should we...get a bush? There’s bushes, we can get a bush, no problem,” Magnus wonders aloud, his face starting to betray excitement.

Finally Taako, who has been uncharacteristically silent, speaks. “Alright, fine, since you won’t just come out and ask, yes I’ll make the cookies with the frosting and the sprinkles and the whole bit. And mulled wine. It’ll be a whole feast, I guess. Passive aggressive jerks won’t even ask! But we’d better have candles, ‘cause Lup--”

“Taako--” Lup begins, her tone threatening as she moves to stand up.

“Lup loves candles the best. One time we were with this caravan and they were like, ‘no candles, you’ll catch everything on fire’ and Lup was like ‘how about these candles, fuckers?’ and flipped ‘em off with both hands while she cast Produce Flame and then we bounced in the night—not empty-handed mind you—and aaagghh Lup not the face!” Taako shrieks as Lup pounces on him, brandishing a throw pillow and knocking both of them off the sofa and onto the floor. Lucretia jumps to her feet as Magnus rushes over to separate the two before things get too out of hand, lifting Lup off the top of Taako, who’s vainly struggling to avoid Lup’s pillowy vengeance.

Lup struggles and kicks a little as Magnus lifts her off her feet. “Alright, alright, put me down,” she demands, relinquishing the pillow to Lucretia, who fluffs it and returns it to the sofa. “So I like the candles. Can you blame me? They’re on fire, and they’re pretty and every house has ‘em different, like some folks have seven in a row or nine in row or four in a circle, but they’ve all got candles, ok? I always thought if Taako and I couldn’t have a house to live in we could at least have the candles.” Magnus lowers her back to the ground, and she helps Taako back up. “Don’t you go spilling my shit, bro,” she warns without true malice, releasing his wrist, and Taako nods as he rubs it. “I’ll help with the cookies,” she adds, nudging him with a smile, “they’ve gotta be great!”

Davenport clears his throat. “Well, gang,” he begins, “we didn’t plan on celebrating Candlenights on this mission. But as your captain, I think it will keep morale high, and I really wanna do it. Let’s have Candlenights!”

\---

The crew spends the next day getting ready. Magnus and Merle go out to find the perfect Candlenights bush, while Lucretia and Barry work to decorate the ship’s common area as well as they reasonably can. Taako and Lup spend all day in the kitchen, making do with the ingredients they find and transmuting what they can’t until a feast crowds the long table and cookies by the dozen line the countertops. Davenport bustles around, making sure that everything comes together, humming carol after carol and smiling proudly as his crew works to bring each other joy.

As they gather around the table, Davenport clears his throat. “Before we eat, gang, I just want to...well, Merle, will you recite the poem? It’s hardly Candlenights without the poem.”

“Sure, I’d love to,” replies Merle, rising to his feet. He clears his throat and begins: 

‘‘Twas the night before Candlenights when all through the town  
Not a creature quite knew what the heck could go down...”

**Author's Note:**

> This seemed like a fun, seasonally appropriate concept I wanted to play with. I was talking with my mom about how traditions are evolved through generations, and that really helped crystallize some ideas.
> 
> The poem is from the MBMBAM TV show Candlenights episode.
> 
> Also this fanart evoked the image of Magnus picking Lup up to prevent her from violence super well, check it out: http://snuffysbox.tumblr.com/post/167748805577/you-know-that-scene-in-b99-with-rosa-terry-and
> 
> Happy Candlenights however you celebrate! Yell in the comments if you like!


End file.
